Flag icons for languages

Sign in Killarney, Ireland using flag icons to represent Irish, English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian and Polish

The use of flag icons, particularly national flags, for languages is a common practice. Such icons have long been used on tourist attraction signage, and elsewhere in the tourism space, but have found wider use in website localization where UX limitations have become apparent.[1][2]

Types of flags icons

National flags

National flags are the most commonly used flag icons for representing languages. They are generally chosen because they either represent the language's origin (e.g. the flag of Spain used over the flag of Mexico) or the highest number of native speakers (e.g. the flag of the United States over the Flag of England).[3]

Mixed national flags

A diagonally divided flag between two or more nation states may be used when more than one country is a major user of a language. Examples of this are the flags of the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada to indicate the English language, the flags of China and Taiwan to represent Mandarin, the flags of France, Belgium, and Canada to represent the French language, the flags of Spain and Mexico to represent the Spanish language, and the flags of Portugal and Brazil to represent the Portuguese language.[4][5]

Linguistic flags

Some international linguistic communities have flags which encompass all the speakers of a language while avoiding the symbolism of national flags, though they are not as widely recognized.[6] Some, like the flag of Esperanto, the Yiddish flag or the Arabic flag have been designed specifically as symbols for languages themselves rather than for organizations which link nations that share the same language.[7]

International flags

The flag of the Arab League, representing Arabic

Some international organizations do not link nations speficially through language, but nonetheless encompass all the regions where one language is spoken. The flags for such organizations, like the flag of the Arab League, are therefore sometimes used to represent those languages.[8]

Writing systems

National flags can also be used to distinguish between different written standards for a single language. For example, the Flag of Taiwan is often used for Traditional Chinese and the Flag of the People's Republic of China for Simplified Chinese.[9]

Political motivations

Sign in the Republic of Ireland using the Irish flag for both English and Irish

Some Euronet ATMs (automated teller machines) display the Irish flag as a symbol for the English language (usually UK flag or English flag). In the media, this was speculated to be a response to Brexit, with the Republic of Ireland as one of the only two Anglophone nations left in the European Union (another being Malta). Dr. Oetker have been observed doing the same.[10] The Irish flag is more usually used to signify the Irish language.[11]

Criticism

The use of flag icons for languages has been criticized as poor design, with some going as far as to call them harmful.[12][13][better source needed] The symbolism of a flag introduces politicization, and often ambiguity. The use of a national flag disregards the fact that many languages are natively spoken in several nation states, and many nations have several major languages.[14] Alternatives include using the native names of languages or their language codes, possibly under a generic symbol of translation such as the Language Icon.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Meloni, Julie C. (May 25, 2012). Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL and Apache All in One: STY PHP, MySQL Apache AIO_p5. Sams Publishing. ISBN 9780132603645 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Cronin, Blaise (March 23, 2004). Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. Information Today, Inc. ISBN 9781573872096 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ "Why flags do not represent languages – Flags are not languages". 2012-08-26. Retrieved 2024-10-15.
  4. ^ Grainger, Jonathan (July 20, 2017). On national flags and language tags: Effects of flag-language congruency in bilingual word recognition. Acta Psychologica – via Science Direct.
  5. ^ Guilherme, Manuela; Souza, Lynn Mario T. Menezes de (February 6, 2019). Glocal Languages and Critical Intercultural Awareness: The South Answers Back. Routledge. ISBN 9781351184632 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ Heritage, Canadian (August 15, 2017). "Flags of La Francophonie". www.canada.ca.
  7. ^ "arabic Archives". Fluent Forever. Retrieved 2024-10-15.
  8. ^ "Duostories". duostories.org. Retrieved 2024-10-15.
  9. ^ Graff, Roy; Parulis-Cook, Sienna (July 9, 2019). China, the Future of Travel. Lulu.com. ISBN 9780244800529 – via Google Books.
  10. ^ Troughton-Smith, Steve (14 April 2019). "English instructions on the back of EU food coming with an Irish flag 🇮🇪 instead of a UK one 🇬🇧 is my new favorite burn 🤣". Twitter.
  11. ^ McNally, Frank. "English Stew – Frank McNally on a meeting of the anglophone world in Limerick". The Irish Times.
  12. ^ Watrall, Ethan; Siarto, Jeff (2009). Head First Web Design. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN 978-0-596-52030-4.
  13. ^ Jones, Taylor (2024-09-22). the DARK IDEOLOGY secretly lurking in language YouTube. Retrieved 2024-10-21 – via YouTube.
  14. ^ —"What census data reveals about use of Indian languages". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 2023-11-16. —"Hindi Added 100Mn Speakers In A Decade; Kashmiri 2nd Fast Growing Language". 2018-06-28. Retrieved 2023-11-16. —"Hindi fastest growing language in India, finds 100 million new speakers". —"Hindi grew rapidly in non-Hindi states even without official mandate". India Today. 11 April 2022. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
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